Do stay-at-home B2B salespeople perform differently?
This week I had an interesting conversation with one of my clients. He manages a B2B sales team and pointed out an interesting statistic that has emerged regarding how his sales team is performing during this “stay-at-home” period. Basically, his sales team has improved by 70% in terms of the average time for first follow-up on leads. In other words, while his sales team works at home, they follow up on leads MUCH faster.
The reasons for this improvement could be many things related to being away from the normal office routine, or travel, or other factors. However, the significant question raised by this data is – how can we respond this quickly all the time? One often quoted statistic in lead follow-up is “35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first” (insidesales.com). So, obviously, responding more quickly is highly desirable.
A conversation needs to happen about what this sales manager can do to create an environment where they can respond quickly ALL the time. What are they spending their time on in normal circumstances? What is different? What can we do differently in the future?
What else are you learning from data collected and/or observations of your sales team during this unusual crisis situation? Are your stay-at-home B2B salespeople performing differently?
